It is important that you obtain 4% hit, this is the PVP hit cap in cataclysm, with the removal of reduced chance to be hit talents/racials it is rather easy to obtain.Now that you can reforge you should easily be able to obtain the hit cap, however i dont think you will need to do this.

Spellpen:

195 is the highest spell resistance buff that is achieveable as far as buffs go.However mages can obtain 240 resistance with shadow protection.Another thing to note is that felhunter has 170 resistance to all magic(255 shadow resistance with an undead player)

This means that 240 spell penetration is a safe zone, pets which you wish to banish, you can just throw a curse of the elements on hence reducing targets resistance by 184.If you are affliction you can spec into jinx and relying on curse of the elements alone, but this is only 184 spell pen(out of the 195 minimal) meaning you have to gem or enchant your back with 70 spell penetration to achieve the minimum/maximum cap.

I, myself prefer using the spell penetration back, providing 201 spell pen. Meaning that mages and felhunters i can just throw up a curse of the elements.(or you could go with spell pen back+70 pen enchant, but honestly this is abit overkill)Basicly: you can settle for 195 spell pen IF you can manage your curse of the elements, otherwise you should settle for 240 if you cant.

Haste:

You should aim for 10% haste, 7% if you can manage to keep Dark Intent up.If you play goblin you can settle for 9% haste, or again 6% if you manage to keep Dark Intent up.This adds another tick to corruption/immolate

Mastery:

Mastery is good, however not worth to gem for. In yellow sockets you should gem 20 intellect 20 haste, or 20 int 20 hit(depending on weather you have reached the PVP hit cap or not, also if you got the 10% haste mentioned earlier, you can gem mastery, but more haste doesnt hurt)

Crit:

Crit is ok to have, but its not something worth stacking up, I tend to reforge away crit.This is however your descission, go for what you feel confertable playing with.

Intellect:

Pretty self explainatory, the more intellect you got, the better.

2)Specs

Affliction:

These are the talents/glyphs i use http://www.wowhead.c...cdhrMo:sMRmaVm0I have skipped jinx because i have already 201 spell penetration in gear and i manage curse of the elements.Now with CC being long casts, glyph of howl of terror is pretty much a must have for affliction, it is simply to good to skip.With glyph of Soul Swap, it is important to soul swap on cooldown, Affliction is all about spread damage and creating pressure.Sadly there are currently no working soul swap macro for focus/mouseover.Other than that it is pretty much a standard affliction spec, however you might see some speccing into bane skipping either demonic rebirth or demonic aegis and 1 talent point in master summoner;Now you can do this if you wish, but lets compare shadow bolt and drain life, shall we?

Drain life:- Stacks with Demon Soul - Fel hunter(yes it is a DOT) - 20% more DOT damage.- Stacks with Haunt - 23% more DOT damage.- Stacks with Shadow Embrace - 5%/10%/15% more DOT damage.- Stacks with Mastery (Potent Afflictions)- Heals you.- Is channeled so you can stop at any time and yet get one or two ticks in.- It can crit now.- Procs Nightfall (instant shadowbolt proc)- Increases your felhunters Shadow Bite damage by 15% when hitting drained target.- Refreshes corruption on target.- Stacks with Dark Intent - 3%/6%/9%

VS

Shadow Bolt- Long cast.- Stacks Shadow Embrace- Easily line of sighted.- Easily interrupted/grounded/reflected(wind shear etc)- Does NOT stack with mastery.

Now this means, at the most drain life will have a damage increase of 67%, this is with demon soul - felhunter, 3 stacks of Shadow Embrace, 3 stacks of Dark Intent and haunt(I did not include mastery, but you get the idea).While shadow Bolt only stacks Shadow Embrace, as a filler i ALLWAYS use drain life.Other than Drain Life, use Haunt on cooldown, and keep dots up/spread them as much as possible.

A spec that I would use if i played with someone who benefits more from spell crit (say wizard cleave): http://www.wowhead.c...dhbMZc:sMRaVm0mI would use Jinx here for swaps, wizard cleave tends to swap alot so then you already have elements on all. However you can skip this for improved life tap if you wish.

Destruction:

Destruction currently has two specs:Imp spec: http://www.wowhead.c...fRfsobo:Vzqaqd0NOTE: you can skip soul leech for Nether Protection.Non imp spec: http://www.wowhead.c...fofsR0o:Vzqaqd0As for glyphs they are pretty standard, however you can chose to swap chaos bolt for incinerate.Bane of havoc isnt good as far as PVP is concerned, which is pretty sad, so skip this talent.To be perfectly honest with you, destruction needs some kind of buff, or talent revamp, it is definately playable, but I see no reason to go destruction over affliction at the moment(<3 shadowfury though). If you enjoy the spec, stick to it (it isnt BAD sort of speak but it could need some love).You should work on covering up immolate with corruption and bane of agony as this spec since destruction currently has no dispel protection. Conflagerate and Chaosbolt on cooldown. Try to do more swaps in this spec.Shadowfury is a great ability, use this as a interrupt, creating pressure and peeling (helping a partner under pressure).

Demonology:

I am not good with this spec, but if i was playing it i would proberally go something like this: http://www.wowhead.c...bodoIbb:amMqad0Bane of doom VS bane of havoc is a personal preference here, but you should note it takes 15 seconds for each bane of doom tick, and it is dispellable.And for the record Glyph of Corruption procs nightfall even if you aren't specced into it.

3)New abilities/soul shard system

With cataclysm we have gotten 5 new abilities;

Soul burn:Neat little spell, i tend to use this for:A) Burst - Drain life as affliction(same reason i mentioned earlier in section 2, affliction) or soul fire as destruction/demonology. Getaway/kite - Demonic Circle: Teleport giving me 50% movement increase.C) Resummon pet, assuming Demonic Rebirth is on its cooldown(if you have specced into this)Honestly thats more or less all i use it for in arena, if i am low i will use it defensivebly by drain life so i heal myself a bit, or port away depeding on circumstances.However this does have a 45 second cooldown, so dont use it randomly, as you might need it for B or C.

Demon Soul:This ability is best used when popping major cooldowns(offencivly) such as death coil and metamorphis. Basicly if you are going for a kill you better use this ability to enhance your damage by a signifinant amount. --However this is why I prefer to play with an imp as destruction, then I actually benefit from this ability instead of playing destruction with felhunter - using the ability then would only grant me more periotic shadow damage increase(We can always hope for a change here )--

Fel Flame:This ability increases the duration of Immolate or Unstable Affliction by 6 seconds.However it is important to note that if your Immolate/UA is on say 2sec duration left, and you want to throw a CC out, or get some damage going i tend to manually refresh it by recasting, so i dont spend 2 globals(3 seconds) on refreshing 12 seconds of UA/immolate rather than just spending 1.2 seconds casting.It is VERY good for stomping tremor totems/other totems.Use it when kiting, when you have to kite away some melees.Important to note: It is able to refresh UA/Immolate on Death Knights even though they are inside Anti magic shell.The damage of it however is a bit dissapointing(no 10k fel flames here sir).

Dark Intent:This is a great buff, it gives you and your linked target 3% haste.It also increases your/linked targets periodic damage/healing by 3%, stacking up to 3(9%).It is dispellable/stealable, so keep an eye out for this, I personally have macroed it and binded it, so i can easily refresh it during game.

Soul Harvest:Heals you, but must be out of combat at the start of cast.Great ability, I have found great use of this in 2v2 as a double DPS setup; Los behind one pillar having port to other, get out of combat and port to the other side soul harvesting to full.I use this when the match resets(both teams pull back) to save my healer from using more mana and allowing him to drink.Also it refreshes your soul shards, 1 each tick.

Soul ShardsYou have 3 soul shards now, only way to retain them during an arena match is to either:A) Soul Harvest, giving you one per tick. Drain soul kill, giving you 3 shards instantly.C) Shadowburn kill, giving you 3 shards if target dies with the debuff still on him.Out of the three the one you will be using/needing the most is A, you have little to no use of 3 shards if you have gained a kill already unless, of course it is a cross-kill.So learn to master your shards, try get a tick or two when possible.

4)Tips/tricks

- If you havent already, keybind everything that you will use in an arena setting. Try binding 1-2 binds each day and get confertable with them in battlegrounds and/or duels (I would advise agianst copying someone elses keybindings, make your own and learn them).

- Practice on your positioning in arena, this means dont stack on a priest or an affliction warlock in arena, try to avoid AOE crowd control, this also means that you should try to position yourself smartly, try standing close to pillars so you can line of sight if your getting pressured. *THIS ALSO GOES FOR YOUR PET, TRY TO AVOID IT GETTING CC'ED*

- You have shadow ward - use it! Even versus a destruction warlock, his Shadowfury is shadow damage.

- If a warrior has spell reflect up, use drain life and move immidiately hence removing his reflect rendering it useless.

- Soulburn : Pet summon resets cooldown of all pet abilities in arena (does not work in battlegrounds/world PVP)

- DO SOMETHING EVERY GLOBAL. I cant stress this enough, if you are affliction dotting with corruption and bane of agony on more targets = more procs/pressure and heals (yes dot pets/mirror images when possible).

- Hellfire can - if timed right break sheep, however not if the mage has glyph of polymorph.

- Sitiational awareness is key in arena, practice on knowing; what is going on, who is casting what, where your partners are, where the enemies are and where your pet is.

- COMMUNICATE - Talk with your partners let them know when you are going to fear, when you need help, who you are dotting. Master this and you have already come a long way as far as arena play goes.

- Practice on pet management, honestly this is the first thing i learned before going more into depth as a warlock - this means make sure pet is in range of target that you want to silence, do this by either having a pet focus attack macro or focus devour, also make sure if you play with an imp that its not on you or any others if its an AOE fear incoming.

- Swap armors, dont stand in fel armor 100% when you are being focused, give your healer a break and swap to demon armor when you are being pressured - same goes when they go off you, swap back into fel armor.

- If you go for a warlock, banishing his pet will temporarily "remove" his soul link, giving him all the damage as if he was playing without it.

- Bind and USE your healthstone, I see alot of warlocks on streams dieing without using their healthstones.

- Get confertable with juking silences/kicks - this means faking, cast something but dont let the interrupt actually school you(lock you out full on that tree).

- Use target Arena 1-3 macros and focus arena 1-3 macros.

- Pet attack makes the game see you as in combat, meaning you are unsappable even if your pet never struck the target.

- Use focus cast macros, for both your pet and yourself.

- Bind Singe Magic, you never know you might NEED to get your partner out of that CC so you can just soulburn an imp and get him out, might even gain yourself a win.

- Bind and use first aid in arena, I cant count the number of times these wonderful bandages has saved me.

- Bind and use wand when you are under improved silence effect, also known as blanket silence, hey any damage is better than no damage.

- If you are playing with a Succubus you can use the Whiplash as an interrupt - it works even if a paladin is in bubble.

- If you lose an arena match dont rage and scream - try to reflect over what went wrong and learn from the mistakes that were done.

- Take breaks! If its going bad and your team has just had a losing streak take a break go eat a banana, play with cats.

5)AddonsI will list some addons you can use to improve your arena play.

Bartender 4Great addon if you like to customize your action bars, warlocks have a LOT of keybindings and some cannot find the space for it with defualt blizzard action bars, if you have this problem - then this addon is for you.

6)Races(All resistances are 85 from racials, easily midtigated by spell penetration and does not stack with buffs, however I decided to include them)

Here I will kind of line up the different races of both factions, making a list (top 3) of the best races for a warlock in PVP.

Alliance

Human:

Every Man For Himself an insignia, allows you to run with 2 trinkets(for example Battlemaster and another PVE trinket) - 3 minutes cooldown (planned to be reduced to 2 minutes again, matching the insignia cooldown).

3% Increased spirit.

Gnome:

Escape Artist Allows the use for removal of slows and immobilization effects - 1.75 minutes cooldown.

Arcane resistance.

5% mana pool increase. (Please note that this was before 5% more intellect)

1) Human/DwarfHuman is the best here if you have a signifinant amount of resilience and can afford to swap insignia for a good PVE trinket.If you however do not have access to a good second trinket I would go Dwarf, stoneform is good now with all the bleeds (feral druids, rogues etc). Also usable to remove crippling poision so it is good.

2) WorgenThe critical strike chance increase is good to have, espesially as destruction/demonology. The movement increase is not bad either for kiting, however the cooldown seems a bit high.

3) GnomeEscape artist is good, but very much like the stoneform, however only usable with slows/roots (meaning I can use Stoneform more defensivable and in a way offensive rather than mostly defensivable).

Horde:

1) GoblinI like the 1% haste, and if you can find a good balance between using Rocket jump/barrage this is the best race for a warlock.

2) Orc/UndeadOrc is definately the best choice if you plan on playing demonology, but honestly it is good no matter what spec, the pet damage increase is always good but 15% stun reduction is also nice if you find yourself being trained alot.I play as affliction so for me here the will/cannibalize is niffty to have in arena.Even though it shares 30 seconds with the PVP insignia, the arena matches last much longer now and it is nice to have a "second" insignia.

3) Troll/BloodelfI will say, personally that troll is better than bloodelf here, we spend most of our time away from enemies, the movement imparing effect reduce is also good and health regen.Arcane Torrent is good nevertheless, you can use it out of a CC or use it as a blanket silence, saving your spell lock.

--THIS IS WHAT IS "BEST" IN MY OPINION, RACIALS DONT WIN MATCHES; THE PLAYER DOES--

7)Macros

Mouseover Bane of Agony/Corruption:

#showtooltip Bane of Agony

/cast [target=mouseover, exists] Bane of Agony;

/cast Bane of Agony;

- This will cast Bane of Agony on your mouseover, if you have one otherwise it will cast it on target, replace Bane of Agony with Corruption to get the same effect on corruption.

- It will start autoattacking and if you have a mouseover it will wand it and if there is no mouseover present it will want target (I use this for totems when im silenced).

I think that pretty much covers it, you can make focus death coil macros etc. out of what I have provided here.

8.Gearing Up

So you just hit 85, and you are looking for some gearing advice and how to obtain items fast? Not a problem, here I will try and guide you in the right direction.

Tol BaradThis is the best way to obtain the honor gear as of today, it gives 1800 honor upon winning attack (+honourable kills and quest) making it roughly 2000(!) honor per attack victory. This means you can obtain pieces already after the first Tol Barad attack victory, I STRONGLY reccomend doing Tol Barad every time it is up (yes, even if it is defend).

While Tol Barad is down you can Either:A) Sweep through Wintergrasp (if your faction controls it) and do the weekly quests for a quick 48 honor (I usually do this while in Battleground queue). Do Battlegrounds while Tol Barad is on cooldown.

Do this and you will have full blue set in no time .

Conquest Points

As for conquest points I strongly reccomend that you spend the first weekly cap on getting the back with spell penetration, this gives you the soft cap (back gives 201 spell penetration, 6 over the minimum cap). The following weeks I would save for weapon, go for the spellblade (1 hander) and offhand. Staff and spellblade+offhand would be equal if it wasn't for the 100 intellect enchant to offhand, I expect this to change in the near future.

Good starter offhandBattle Tome If you get the spellblade but don't have enough conquest points for the offhand I strongly reccomend this, it is a great starter piece for PVP, I managed to grab mine for 300gold off the auction house, or you can find a inscriptor to craft one for you.

Baradin Hold

This is the "Vault of Archavon (also known as VOA)" of Cataclysm, in here you can get Vicious Gloves, legs and offpieces and PVE gloves and legs. Make sure you do this EVERY week.

Valor PointsFor Valor Points I would only get this ring Band of Secret Names and reforge away crit for mastery, it costs 1250 valor points, or 18 days of doing daily heroic. Try and do daily heroic every day for the valor points.

Justice PointsHonestly, I did not buy anything here that I benefited much from PVP-wise with 2000 honor every Tol Barad, I replaced these items fairly quicky.

MS means the amount of time it takes to "talk" to the game, sending packages and recieveing them. It is really Latency, MS stands for milliseconds, again the amount of milliseconds it takes before the game recieves your sent packages.

Reducing it will increase your reaction time, improving your arena play as a whole; the game will seem less laggy.

Most of you have already heard of, or even use the following to improve your MS (Latency), but I decided to add this to the guide nevertheless.

Leatrix Latency Fix:This is an addon that reduces your latency dramaticly. I have never had any problems with this addon. Its basicly just a simple script that reduces your latency.

The most common problem being slowing down your download speed, however this is hardly noticable. I have myself edited this manually by using the regestry edit, however this is NOT reccomended if you are not familiar with the regedit and how it works. Serious damage may be caused to your computer if you do this through the regestry edit without knowing what you are doing.- Fire and gunpowder do not sleep together.

SnowFallKeyPressVery nice addon, makes your abilities go off on button press, rather than release hence improving your "human latency" by a bit. Takes some time to get used to if you aren't using it already, but it is worth it.

11.Computer/real life gear

Good gaming gear also plays a vital role for success in arena.

Mouse:

If you struggle with keybindings I reccomend the Razer Naga as we warlocks have a lot of keybidings.

I am currently using Koss SB45And it is working nicely, wasn't expencive and has great quality (also lifetime guarantee).

Gaming Glasses:

You might have noticed (if you watch tournaments) that Azael and other professional gamers use Gaming Glasses.

These are not a must-have, but definately nice.

The Steelseries Scope are a great pair, my brother has them and I must say after trying those on I fell in love with them, so if you got the money for it, I would definately consider it.

Bottom line as far as headset/keyboard/mouse goes is that you should use whatever is confertable for you, there is no real answer to what is the best equipment for you. If it works and is confertable you should stick to it.

12.Acronyms & Word Explainations

Here I will try and list as common acronymes that you may find in a arena setting, try and use this for easier and quicker communication.

Also, look at the spells (I have added links) to learn those you don't allready know, practice on call them out in arena.

Strip/Stripped - Remove {enemytarget's} buffs or I am being stripped (meaning your buffs are being removed)

Peel - meaning help (get this rogue of me = Peel the rogue)

Kite - Think of a kite you move as he is moving towards you, trying to avoid the enemy player.

IMPORTANT TO NOTE WHEN COMMUNICATING WITH PARTNERS IN ARENA

When refering to enemy target refer to class/spec rather than name

This means that instead of saying get on "Xaybvzz" you should say get on the druid, or if there are two of a certain class (say holy paladin, protection warrior and arms warrior) you should say get on the arms warrior.

When talking about interrupts:

Instead of saying I got mind freezed or I just got counter spelled you should refer to them as:

Silence - 24 second cooldown interrupts

Kick - 10 second cooldown interrupts

Shock - less than 10 second cooldown interrupts

When talking with partners it is important to talk with respect don't shout at them just because they made a mistake, gently try to point out that perhaps he could have done something different. Try not to blame everyone for everything, this gets you nowhere.

Great program, has some free public servers (however they are crowded, so I dont reccomend using public servers). It has a monthly fee if you are to buy servers. However I prefer teamspeak over Venrtilo.

Added 2 more sections to the guide, however I do not have the time to finish the acronyme list/word explaination yet, and I have few more things which I may add to the guide. However now it is new years eve so it is time to start drinking, enjoy and have a happy new year.